The Lang dean suggested we start with a classic essay about the goals of a liberal arts education, historian William Cronon's 1998 "Only Connect." (These are general goals for students whatever their major.) This is indeed very inspiring, defining liberal arts beyond politically frought words like liberty and liberalism as about "freedom and growth." The aspiration is to produce people with an admirable set of qualities:
1. They listen and they hear.
2. They read and they understand.
3. They can talk with anyone.
4. They can write clearly and persuasively and movingly.
5. They can solve a wide variety of puzzles and problems.
6. They respect rigor not so much for its own sake but as a way of seeking truth.
7. They practice humility, tolerance, and self-criticism.
8. They understand how to get things done in the world.
9. They nurture and empower the people around them.
10. They follow E. M. Forster’s injunction from Howards End: “Only connect...”
(I wish I were better on 3 and 8, among others!) I look forward to students' responses to these ideals, and to what happens when we ask them to compare them to The New School's own boutique set of aspirations, the eleven "Shared Capacities." (The first five and last are sort of mandated by our accrediting body; the rest are our own. Each has its own learning outcomes.)
Critical Analysis
Communication
Quantitative Reasoning
Research Literacy
Scientific Literacy
Authorship
Creative Making
Cross-Disciplinary Thinking
Flexibility and Resiliency
Working in Complex Systems
Ethical Reasoning
It'll be interesting to toggle between the broader aims for all students across majors (New School's are conceived as relevant for libeal arts, design and performing arts students), and the particular ideals of a libeal arts major. Does it just do the general aims more fully and intentionally, or are there additional goals? I wonder if anyone will wonder at the absence of any canonical knowledge, great books?
In the back of my mind is something I may or may not have occasion to bring into the conversations. One of the most celebrated liberal arts colleges in the country, New College of Florida (one of those we'll be looking at Saturday), is in the midst of a hostile takeover. Florida Republicans, led by Governor DeSantis, plan to turn a legendarily progressive place into another kind of liberal arts college, one rooted in an artes liberales tradition understood to be specifically and uniquely western - and Christian. The model is Hillsdale College in rural Michigan, which has its own understanding of the value, and rigors, of an education for freedom and growth:
Human beings have to be taught to see the world. ...
A liberal arts education liberates us from our wishful thinking—and all the other constraints on our understanding of reality. It is the surest way to direct individuals toward a life that is truly free.
Are we aiming for the same things? Hillsdale thinks you can't do it without the great ideas of the western tradition, an explicit commitment to developing the virtues, the full gamut of disciplines (including the natural sciences) - and the idea of perfection: God.
Image: Sandro Botticelli, "A young man introduced
to the seven liberal arts" (1483-6), Prudentia presiding
